


To give, and to recieve

by scuttlesworth



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Non-Consensual, Rape, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1225087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scuttlesworth/pseuds/scuttlesworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have to talk to someone about the things that happen. It's regulations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To give, and to recieve

They've all had a little something inside them, one time or another. Something they didn's ask for or consent to. They aren't the only ones, not by a long shot- SG1 might be the flagship team, the first and boldest, but after a couple years most of the other teams and several of the on-world staff are represented in the bi-weekly meetings. 

 

It's a repurposed gymnasium, closed after 6 pm. They sit in a circle on the armless stackable chairs, nothing between them, nothing to hide behind. The lights are on, pitiles and clinical. Flurescents. Nobody looks good under flurescents. Nobody wears a uniform- they aren't allowed, in these meetings. No rank, no last names, if you see someone from group in the halls you can nod but it's up to them if they acknowledge it. No discussing group outsided of group, ever. A conspiracy of privacy under the mountain. They aren't the only group to meet there, but they don't know who the other groups are. Each circle of silence exists without touching, on alternating nights. 

 

Carter's been to the meetings. It'll do them good to see you there, the General said, gently, his eyes kind but backed with steel. Yes sir, she said, and went. Hello, my name is Samantha Carter and I had a symbiote in my head against my will. 

 

She doesn't tell them everything. The loss of control like a nova in her chest, burning white in her mind as she tried everything to get free. Her symbiote's panic and self-loathing. Their conversations in the cell, desperate, pragmatic, pained, disciplined. Those she tells. But not the rest. 

 

She tells Jack more, after his escape from Ba'al. When she sees the tremor in his hands and knows the torture, the sarcophagus, are only the final bits of the story. That the beginning was the worst. She hands him a whisky and pours a generous splash for herself, turns off most of the lights, and sits in his living room in the dark. He listens. 

 

She tried to consent after the fact, she says. It doesn't really work that way, but she tried. She told herself it was necessary. And that was true. She told herself she didn't get hurt. And that wasn't entirely true, but physically she ended up fine. She decided to be ok. And it mostly, mostly worked. She focused on the positive. The good relationship they developed with the Tokra, that saved her father's life. He got to consent. She is not upset about that. Not jealous. 

 

The memories Jolinar shared with her, they were good memories. Not evil. She never asked for them but they're hers now, and she chose to handle them, deal with them, cope. Own them. That's the almost kiss. Jack stirs when she says that out loud. She's grateful for the darkness, for the fact that all she can see of him is the kitchen light on his left ear and some of his hair. He drinks; she continues. She was braced to cope; to deny those memories would have been weak. She was glad, in the end, not to have to be strong enough for that. Grateful for the interruption, and disapointed in herself for that cowardice. 

 

When she's done, they sit in silence, in the dark, until he gets up to get them some water. She carefully does not see the gleam of tears on his cheeks, and says nothing about his red-rimmed eyes when he nods to her as she's leaving. But he seems a bit better the next week, and better the week after. He passes  his psych eval and stays their lead. Which is all you can hope for, really. He never does go to the meetings. 

 

They never talk to Daniel about Hathor. He goes to the meetings for a month after, listening, but says nothing. One week an airman talks about her rape, about being pinned down offworld in the room the locals had set aside for them, her weapon inches from her fingers while a man who reeked of the local  drink thrust between her thighs. She is red with fury, shaking and crying, when she tells them she had an orgasm. She bolts for the trash in the corner and vomits, clutching the rim desperately, before getting back up and holding her head high and walking over to sit back down. The group leader passes her a water bottle. She drinks, wipes her mouth with the back of one hand, looks at the group. Looks every one of them in the eyes. Most of them are crying with her. Two others - one man, one woman- nod at her in silence, faces set in blank and careful lines. Siblings, now, in a way. Tied with a common thread. 

 

Daniel does not go back to group after, but he passes his mandatory psych eval as well. He never does speak to any of them. But. When the airman gets a promotion, he's there in the back of the room, and he claps for her, fiercely. 

 

Teal'k touches his symbiote pouch in silence as he settles in for kel no ri. The candles flicker, the silence sacred. His pouch, empty, a blank hole where something has always been. Something unwanted, unasked for, and evil; but a part of him nonetheless. He remembers when he first collapsed in the snow in front of Bra'tak, trying to understand, the confilct wild in his heart. The shame of knowing that all his childhood pride in being chosen to cary a god was wasted, like smoke. The misery of the loss of faith. The slow path back to balance. 

 

To be truly free, he ponders, when one has been accustomed to bearing a burden for so long. Perhaps it was impossible. Perhaps he could never be truly free. The body adjusts itself to an imbalance, reshapes itself until the removal of the burden comes as a shock, and the body cannot cope.  Perhaps only his son and his son's son would ever achieve true freedom, would be born and grow untwisted. It had been too late for him, too late by many years. But that did not displease him. To have been the one to free his child- he let the thought glow in his heart for a long moment. 

 

He would gladly bear any disfigurement, cope with any invasion of his body or his soul, for that prize. 


End file.
